After three days of unsuccessful attempts at trying to leave Cali for San Cipriano, we decided to try a different approach: we were going to take a day trip to San Cipriano with promises of returning to Cali at night for salsa at Tin Tin Deo! This meant that our journey needed to begin early in the morning with a wake up call at 5:30am.
After a groggy start and a stop to pick up some yogurt R, our Korean friend, and I met up with our friend from Baltimore by Hotel Intercontinental to catch a bus headed towards Buenaventura. We were told the earlier you arrive on the side of the road the easier it is to catch a bus…. Unfortunately 6:00am is not early enough and every bus that passed us for the next hour and a half was full and not interested in picking us up. Cali seemed to be trying to keep us in town again, and it wasn’t even 8am yet!
We had almost reached the point of giving up when a friendly Colombian pulled over and asked if we were headed to Buenaventura. Turns out he runs a shuttle (meaning he drives his old car once a day) between Cali and Buenaventura for the same price as the bus and could get us to our destination in an efficient amount of time. We took it as a good sign that when we tried to barter him down and were unsuccessful (if he was going to kidnap/rob all four if us, he would have budged on price first, right?) and all decided to pile in his car and head out of Cali!
The ride consisted of interesting conversation, the quickest breakfast anyone has ever eaten, exciting driving through construction (on the opposite side of the divided road!), passing the tolls by driving through random streets and chatting up police, until finally we passed a national police checkpoint. Unfortunately I was not quick enough at rolling up my dark-tinted window when prompted and an officer saw my gringa-ness! We were pulled over and one policeman demanded our identification. Baltimore gave him his drivers license (yep, from Maryland. Would they even know if it was real? We have our doubts), R and I gave him our passport copies which immediately he refused to accept as legit, making a huge scene about how we need to have the original with us at all times. People, we have been through numerous police checkpoints, and when they are interested in our IDs, they do not care if it’s a copy!
He held firm to the unacceptability of copies until he found out our Korean had no identification what-so-ever! Whoops. This was when us three Americans realized this military man was just after getting a bribe. Unluckily, he randomly picked three feisty Americans that were not going to give him a thing! The three of us took on our respected rolls: Baltimore was the calm, sense-talking individual showing the officer our Korean friend’s police report from her stolen iPhone that proved she in fact was legal with a passport; I pulled the overly dramatic girl that kept saying please and I don’t understand what the problem is in a near whine; and R brought out the aggressive crazy-eyes that was not going to let them take our Korean girl from us. The military man kept trying to get us to turn around and head back to Cali, abandon our Korean friend, or find another solution but we were so close to accomplishing our day trip and getting out of Cali we could almost taste it! We were going to get out of town!! It wasn’t until R went and found a different officer who told the man to let us go that we finally escaped with no bribe!
We then finally arrived to the bridge that leads across the river to San Cipriano!
The only way to get to San Cipriano is to board the awesome brujitas that are essentially a piece of wood with wheels that fits on train tracks and they transport people by using the power of a motorcycle. The majority of the motorcycle is on the plank of wood besides the rear tire which is on the railroad track providing the momentum.
It is a pretty amazing ride to the village! Once we arrived we met up with our wonderful Canadian friend who took us on a muddy hike through the thick jungle to a large waterfall with a nice swimming hole. So worth the trek, but R did not bring her camera along for photos. Fail. We followed this excursion with a delicious lunch and two more cascades. San Cipriano, like Rio Claro, is an adventure river park where you can hike and float the river through the beautiful landscape. It is a bit expensive to get there, but it is a fun journey and a relaxing area.
After our few hours there we had to board our new brujita to begin our journey back to Cali so we could meet up with our friends and dance salsa on our last night in town!
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Rule #2: Don't Die. 